Biography

 Gaia Alari is an Italian visual artist, award-winning illustrator and animation filmmaker based in Europe. She is currently ranked #5 creatives in illustration / animation worldwide according to the Art Directors Club.

During her studies in medicine and surgery (2009 – 2016), she also develops her artistic competences as a self- taught illustrator and visual artist. 

She has therefore pursued a career as a visual artist specializing in works on paper. As of 2020, she has been focusing on directing and animating experimental video-art animation projects and commissioned animation – including music videos, specializing in traditional frame-by-frame hand animation, usually as a one-woman team. She collaborates with Colector Gallery (Mexico, Usa). 

She regularly collaborates with international music labels: Warner, Sub Pop, Atlantic Records (Warner USA), Nonesuch Records (Warner USA), SaddleCreek (US), Full Time Hobby (UK), Sacred Bones (US), JagJaguwar (US). She took part in the collective lyric video for Coldplay, winner of best animation in a music video at the UKMVA. Her latest collaboration is with Universal Music Group, Lenovo and Intel for Alessia Cara’s new album “Love and Hyperbole”. Her animated clips have been screened at film festivals around the world. 

Among her most notable commercial work, she directed and animated the “Never Beaten” campaign for Beats by Dre with creative director Casey Ryder and she took care of the animations for “Caterpillar Journey”, campaign for HOKA X UNNA.

She is currently in pre-production on her first animated short “What comes at night” with La Cellule Production (France). The film received the FAIA dev from the CNC, was presented at the pitches of the Rennes animation festival and the Annecy MIFA (2023) where it received the NEF animation residency prize at the Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud (October 2023). The film also won a production grant from the Nouvelle Aquitaine region, Charente department,  Region Sud and Region Auvergne /Rhone Alps and the production fund from CNC.

Among other projects, she worked as animation director on the feature-length docufilm “L’eco dei fiori sommersi”, directed by Rosa Maietta and produced by Ladoc Produzioni (Italy), that premieres at Filmmaker Fest (Milan) in November 2024.

She illustrated cover, feature story and animated the interactive article “Walnut and me” by Sam Anderson on The New York Times Magazine, issue June 3rd 2024, winner of the ASME award for Best Illustrated Story at the 2025 National Magazine Awards, winner of Best of Discipline: Illustration black cube awarded by the Art Directors Club and of a silver medal for best illustration awarded by the SPD. She also illustrated the op-ed “TV medical dramas are not like real life. Maybe they should be” by Dr Daniela J Lamas in October 2024, published on The New York Times. She collaborated with The New Yorker to illustrate the essay “Pigeon Toes” by Ian Frazier. She worked with MoMA, bringing to life the somatic exercise recited by somatic therapist Emily Price, published on the museum’s magazine.